Naslov
Going productive with metonymy

Autori
Brdar, Mario

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Sažeci sa skupova, sažetak, znanstveni

Izvornik
English Studies as Archive and as Prospecting: 80 Years of English Studies in Zagreb / - Zagreb, 2014, 20-21

Skup
English Studies as Archive and as Prospecting: 80 Years of English Studies in Zagreb

Mjesto i datum
Zagreb, Hrvatska, 18.09.2014. - 21.09.2014

Vrsta sudjelovanja
Predavanje

Vrsta recenzije
Domaća recenzija

Ključne riječi
polysemy; copula verb; metaphor; metonymy; construction; productivity

Sažetak
When used as copula verbs come and go appear with antonymic sets of adjectives - the former is normally combined with items expressing positive qualities, the latter with negative ones: (1) a. Our wish came true. b. The milk went sour. It seems that this sort of opposition is fairly systematic. It has been claimed that it is motivated by some elements of meaning found with these verbs outside copular use, viz. as motion verbs, go denoting a movement away from the speaker as a deictic centre, and come denoting movement towards the speaker. Radden’s (1996) account crucially rests on the notion of deixis inherently associated with verbs come and go. The metaphorical extensions of the two verbs are claimed to be motivated by a set of conceptual metaphors that map deictic motion onto change of state. Like other motion verbs, come and go also profile certain parts of the complex SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema. Come profiles the terminal phase of the motion, while go profiles the initial phase of the movement (Radden 1996: 427). This distinction in profile is claimed by Radden (1996: 427) to carry over to their metaphorical senses. He also notices that go can be used as a current copula verb denoting the absence of change, as in (2): (2) Garbage went uncollected for weeks. Radden explains this construction by means of the specific conceptual metaphor UNEXPECTED STATE IS DIVERSION from expected changes, which is based on another version of the diversion schema. In effect, this construction is explained not as a movement away from a certain state, but as a movement away from a change. This account is no doubt very elegant, and certainly right as far as its basic claim is concerned, viz. that the copular uses of come and go are motivated by the primary motion meaning of these verbs, but it appears that it does not provide at all for another construction found with go as a current copula verbs, viz. the one illustrated in (3): (3) He went hungry/naked. I show in this presentation that the role of metaphor in such an account is massively overplayed, and that metonymy should be recognized as having a crucial role in setting the stage for subsequent grammaticalization processes, some of which also involve metaphor. The whole process takes place in a number of small incremental steps. This means at the same time that we must be ready to accept that conceptual extensions may be taking place in a slightly different order from the one underlying Radden’s account. My starting point is the sense of go as denoting neutral or adirectional movement, which turns out, in diachronic terms, to be the basic one.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

POVEZANOST RADA